The incident with the supposedly-vegan quesadillas at Veggie Heaven made it abundantly clear to me that Veggie Heaven uses the term "vegan" loosely without any real ingredients check. It's pretty sad that we have to deal with vegetarian restaurants not properly labeling their dishes. I wouldn't trust anything out of that place, except maybe the vegetarian sushi. We need a real vegan place in this city, run by vegans with full disclosure of ingredients.

i asked about the vegan cheese too, since it said "soy cheese" on the board, and we all know most soy cheese isn't really vegan. the older lady--the one who's always there, kinda shrugged like i was annoying her with the details and said, we don't know. no effort to read the package or anything.

And yeah...I don't like veggie heaven very much. I think their sauces are bland and all taste pretty similar to each other.

Customer service there is horrible! I went with a friend about 30 minutes before they closed (although we didn't realize they closed that early, or we wouldn't have gone.) The lady sat us without mentioning their hours. She rushed us to order, then brought the bill and some to go containers with our food. The second we started eating, she said "don't you want to get it to go?" When I got up to use the bathroom, the lady piled my chair on top of the table in front of my friend while she was still eating! There were a couple other people in the restaurant too and they did the same thing to them!

Weird. They bring the food out quickly. But I get the feeling its just so they can get you to leave sooner so they pack in as many customers as possible. They definitely don't care about creating a comfortable experience.

Veggie Heaven has a lot of good things going for it. I remember there was an article about them feeding some kids who were camping out on their roof. They came up to the roof and the kids thought they were going to make them leave, but instead they brought them food. I also like the service b/c it's efficient & I understand that they would want people to eat quickly b/c they have a pretty small place. I definitely think it's a problem that they don't know enough about their ingredients, such as the veg-cheese issue, but I still like going there.

i'm with jamie, i'm glad the service is fast. and srsly, how spoiled are we here in austin to complain about a completely vegetarian (and 95% vegan) restaurant with 50+ items on the menu? imagine if we were in nowheresville, kansas...we'd be thanking god for a place like this.

btw i tried the taro dish for the first time recently and it was awesome.

don't get me wrong, when i first came to austin after living in midland, texas my entire life, i was in hog heaven at veggie heaven. i couldn't believe there was a place that was entirely vegetarian. we are spoiled here in austin, but i don't think that should keep us from criticizing shady business practices. in my view, you should know what goes into the food you're making because you're making people believe one thing or another about what they're eating that may not be correct. if it weren't for feedback and criticism from customers, no business could improve their practices. i still go to veggie heaven, i just usually get tofu dishes now.

did i tell you guys about the time i saw a busser kill a giant roach right there, on the wall, over one of the tables (vacant tables, i should say)? it was really nasty. kinda turned me off from the place, although i still get the rare takeout (lucky 7 rocks--it's totally vegan, you can tell. and i never feel sick after eating it) the taro's great too.

yeah, it's tricky getting them to change the soy cheese, since there's a glut of casein-ridden soy cheese on the market, and a business like that which thrives on the low cost / high volume business model just isn't going to take the time to seek out a special (and probably more expensive) vegan soy cheese. has anyone tried dealing with the soy cheese manufacturers directly? perhaps if we could get at the source we wouldn't have to worry so much about specific restaurants buying the wrong ingredients. some of the best soy cheese i've had was casein free (i've always thought the casein kind was really rubbery). anyone up for a massive letter writing campaign to the major soy cheese manufacturers, to pressure them to nix the casein? i bet we could accomplish somethiing if all of us wrote letters around the same time. wouldn't hurt to try! who's in?

Oh the perils of being vegan and working in restaurants. I remember dry heaving in an alley multiple times while waiting tables (17-20 years old). The repulsive things that go on in restaurants lead you to want to cook on the regular for yourself.

a fuckin-men. i totally prefer making my own food. i remember back in high school we went to some fancy french restaurant (before i was veg) in d.c. we took a walk around the block afterwards--a nice part of town--and every step we took there were about 10-20 roaches in view, all over the sidewalk. apparently the restaurant district was infested. with our full tummies i'm sure there was a bunch of mental dry-heaving. UGH! we stepped cautiously, if quickly to get out of there.

yeah, i guess i forgave veggie heaven for the roach incident since i know the roach thing is hard to avoid in restaurants. i'll still get takeout every blue moon, but i'm a bit sketched out on eating in after that. and now that i know about the glass in food thing too i'll be extra careful looking before i take a bite! thx.